Teaching High School and University Graduate Students on the Same Day

I offer my experience in teaching high schoolers and graduate students on the same day as an honest, perhaps naive, way of reflecting on how (and why) I taught both for an entire semester. While teaching both kinds of students occurred many years ago, I believe that those experiences apply to both teachers and professors in 2026. After teaching two graduate courses in education at Stanford University in the mornings, I would bike over to a nearby high school to teach an afternoon Economics class. I kept a journal of what occurred in both os these classes and wrote of the similarities and differences I noticed across both settings. Based upon those experiences and analyses of my journals, here are the similarities and differences that I found. Differences They are obvious insofar as student maturity and motivation. Moreover, one is compulsory and the other is elective; finally, complexity of subject matter varied. Similarities The similarities did surprise me. I taught 28 high school…